Design and Simulation of a Hierarchical Parallel Distributed Processing Model for Orientation Selection Based on Primary Visual Cortex

Biomimetics (Basel). 2023 Jul 16;8(3):314. doi: 10.3390/biomimetics8030314.

Abstract

The study of the human visual system not only helps to understand the mechanism of the visual system but also helps to develop visual aid systems to help the visually impaired. As the systematic study of neural signal processing mechanisms in early biological vision continues, the hierarchical structure of the visual system is gradually being dissected, bringing the possibility of building brain-like computational models from a bionic perspective. In this paper, we follow the objective facts of neurobiology and propose a parallel distributed processing computational model of primary visual cortex orientation selection with reference to the complex process of visual signal processing and transmission between the retina to the primary visual cortex, the hierarchical receptive field structure between cells in each layer, and the very fine-grained parallel distributed characteristics of cortical visual computation, which allow for high speed and efficiency. We approach the design from a brain-like chip perspective, map our network model on the field programmable gate array (FPGA), and perform simulation experiments. The results verify the possibility of implementing our proposed model with programmable devices, which can be applied to small wearable devices with low power consumption and low latency.

Keywords: brain-like model; orientation selection; primary visual cortex; programmable devices; retina.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China: 61771146, and the National Thirteen 5-Year Plan for Science and Technology: 2017YFC1703303.